You only wish winning the lottery was as predictable as the annual thought bubble from a high-ranking AFL official about the possibility of a twilight or night grand final.
It comes inevitably during a quiet news period and during a one-on-one with the said official in which the interviewer will bombard them with a series of state-of-the-game questions desperately hoping for a snappy quote or sound bite.
The kite-flying will be phrased vaguely enough to enable the AFL to back away if pushed for more specifics. And the TV broadcasters, meanwhile, lap it up. The later start time for which they’ve agitated so long is put back on the agenda without them being seen to be the “bad guy”.
It’s a cynical exercise, one which the football public sees through every time. And did again last week when AFL Commission chairman Richard Goyder took his turn at the plate.
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Goyder said a twilight or night timeslot would enable the AFL to “really put on a real show”. “At the right time and for the right reasons, I think we should give it a go.”
AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan, of course, added his annual contribution. That a later start was “inevitable at some point in the future”.
Goyder’s “real show” comment would have induced plenty of eye-rolling from the scores of AFL fans still revelling in last year’s epic West Coast-Collingwood grand final, labouring under the apparent delusion that one of the greatest grand finals of all time was in fact itself the show.
As for his other comments? Well, Richard, if you’re going to throw the bait out again, we’re only too happy to jump on the hook. Mainly because if we don’t continue to shoot down the lack of logic in the later start argument, it will indeed, as McLachlan insists, be inevitable.
“We’re all traditionalists”? Well, no, because if you’re prepared to sacrifice about the one surviving tradition in our code because a twilight game “with the right entertainment would be amazing”, you’re clearly not a traditionalist.
And indeed, many would argue that if your experience of a grand final is determined in part by a 15-minute music show on the occasion of the most important game of the year, you’re not even much of a football fan.
“We asked the club captains last year and the majority of them said they’d love a twilight grand final,” Goyder said. “Everything has to line up — you have to take the fans with you and there has to be good reason to do it.”
Let’s look at this statement. If what Goyder says about the captains is correct, it nonetheless is the opinion of 18 out of a player pool of around 800. And the rest? Well, when the Herald Sun polled 700-odd players last year that certainly wasn’t the answer they got.
In fact, 75 per cent of respondents said they preferred a day game, 22 per cent twilight and a paltry three per cent a night game.
Taking the fans with you? The same newspaper for the last five years has polled its readership on the idea. And every time (including last week) the percentage favouring the current 2.30pm start has ranged between 71 and 74 per cent.
Footy fans certainly don’t seem to be coming along for this ride. That’s despite McLachlan’s comment two years ago now that the twilight proposal was receiving “broad acceptance” for supporters. If that’s broad acceptance, I’d hate to see what comprised opposition.
Why are the players resistant? No, it’s not simply being anti-change. Among other reasons, like having to wait around hours longer to get underway and getting even more anxious, there’s the significant factor of optimal conditions.
AFL players will tell you ball-handling with the yellow football instead of the red IS more difficult. The greater likelihood of moisture in the air at twilight and night increases that difficulty.
Doesn’t the single most important game of the season deserve every possible chance of being played in the best possible conditions?
Consider, too, the supposed more spectacular half-time show, which requires longer to set up, stage and take down, and consequently, necessitate a longer half-time break.
Yes, that gives the players more recovery time. It also gives them a greater chance of seizing up and getting injured when they return. And I’m tipping given a choice between a longer break and the match day routine they follow every other game of their careers, not too many wouldn’t opt for the latter.
The proponents of change will point to the number of night and twilight games already on the schedule. Why are they OK? Because ultimately the players must do as they’re told. And have they actually ever been asked what their preferred start time is for games beyond the grand final? I’m not sure their answer would be any different.
The fans? We know the arguments well by now. The young children for whom a night game would finish too late for them to be able to watch. The array of grand final breakfasts and lunches and backyard barbecues that are already an ingrained part of the grand final ritual.
So what WOULD be a compelling reason to go to twilight or evening. To be frank, I’m stuffed if I know.
The grand final is without fail a sell-out, and in terms of TV audiences close enough to the highest-rating sports broadcast of the year. Does the possibility of a few extra thousand viewers seem a good enough reason? Not for me.
How are those numbers, or the amount of potential extra revenue, anything but wild speculation, anyway? And if it’s speculation led by the same network executives responsible for some of the TV programming decisions made these days, you’ll pardon my scepticism.
As for the entertainment, who actually gives a toss after the event? Six months later, we’re still talking about Dom Sheed’s ice-cool boundary line goal to give West Coast the flag. Were we talking about Black Eyed Peas even five minutes after they’d come off stage earlier the same afternoon?
Yep, the same arguments. In response to the same kite-flying exercise. The same lip service to paying respect to public opinion. And the same drivel about it all being inevitable despite logic and opinion stacking up to the contrary.
Here’s the deal, commissioners. It’s only inevitable if you cave in to network pressure, ignore your players and your core constituency, and effectively thumb your nose at us all. And if that happens, please don’t insult us any more by pretending you give a stuff what any of us think.
*You can read more of RoCo’s work at Footyology.